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Sports Massage Career Tips from an Athletic Trainer

AMTA 2015 Schools Summit keynote speaker Kevin Carroll has an MS in Health Education and was an athletic trainer for the Philadelphia 76ers. Here's his advice on starting a career in sports massage.

With your athletic training background, how have you seen massage therapy impact athletes?

I’ve witnessed the positive impact that massage therapy can have on an athlete’s recovery in a myriad of ways to include: post-game competition, pre/post practices, conditioning regimens, post-op recovery, injury prevention and rehabilitation.

What would you tell massage therapists who want to work in a sports setting?

I think it’s important to have several years of experience in massage therapy, be supremely confident in your communication skills and your ability to handle the “quirks/eccentricities/egos” that may be found within an athletic setting. There are many sports settings that could potentially utilize the expertise of a seasoned massage therapist – sports medicine clinic, university/college athletic department, referral via team sports medicine staff, personal massage therapist for a professional athlete or a referral service via hotel concierge.

Sports settings can be an exciting, wonderful and rewarding area to share one’s skills as a massage therapist but it can also be a very unpredictable and challenging environment.

"AMTA and my chapter have already given me back so much that I cannot believe I ever considered another group."

—Chris B., AMTA member since 2012

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